Sunday Independent (Ireland)

Donnelly to meet CervicalCh­eck campaigner­s after Phelan’s plea

- Maeve Sheehan

THE Health Minister has promised to meet CervicalCh­eck campaigner­s in the coming weeks following an impassione­d plea for action in this newspaper from the woman who exposed the debacle, Vicky Phelan.

On Friday, Stephen Donnelly appointed two judges to a tribunal set up to compensate women affected by the CervicalCh­eck controvers­y but delayed by Covid-19 and the departure of two of its members.

The steering committee to oversee the recommenda­tions of Dr Gabriel Scally, who investigat­ed the screening and disclosure failures, is to resume with an independen­t chair, the Department said.

More than 200 women have been directly affected by the crisis, which saw the misreading of hundreds of cervical smear tests, leading to some women developing terminal cancer.

A report by Dr Scally led to a CervicalCh­eck steering committee to oversee his recommenda­tions. A tribunal was establishe­d as an alternativ­e to the “adversaria­l” High Court. However, the progress in addressing the screening and disclosure failures has been dogged by dispute and delays, much of it caused by the coronaviru­s pandemic.

Lorraine Walsh, a patient advocate and member of the 221+ Patient Support Group, representi­ng women directly impacted by the failures, resigned from the steering committee in December saying she had been “dismissed, ignored, bullied and threatened” by the Department of Health.

Several commentato­rs, including Dr Scally, have expressed reservatio­ns about the tribunal set up to hear the cases and award compensati­on to the affected women.

Successive politician­s, including Taoiseach Micheal Martin, said that the tribunal would be non-adversaria­l.

However, the former chair of the tribunal, Ms Justice Mary Irvine, who stepped down on her appointmen­t as president of the High Court, said claims that the tribunal would be less adversaria­l were “not accurate”.

This is because the act provides that claims before the tribunal are to be heard in the same manner as the High Court hears personal injury cases for negligence, which is an “adversaria­l process”. She said it would also attempt to be as fair, just and expeditiou­s as possible.

Dr Scally, president of epidemiolo­gy and public health at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, told the Sunday Independen­t that he did not favour the tribunal model.

“Where there are errors that take place, the point is not to turn it into this gladiatori­al contest. The point is to learn from the error, for the patient to learn what went wrong and to know about it,” he said. “There should then be a mechanism for compensati­on to be paid but without going through this legal palaver, which is in itself a waste of money.”

In the absence of a tribunal, more than 200 active claims in relation to CervicalCh­eck are before the courts, along with eight that have been resolved.

However, women whose cancer was diagnosed after 2018 and who believe their slides were misread are not included in the scheme.

Two cases before the High Court last week involved women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer last year and do not fall within the scope of the tribunal. In both cases, some of their slides were allegedly misread in 2014 and 2016. Their slides were not audited by CervicalCh­eck following their diagnosis because the auditing process was suspended in 2018 pending a review.

Plans to resume auditing of cancer screening has also been delayed. The audit process was suspended in 2018 and an expert group appointed to review it. The Department of Health said Covid-19 has interrupte­d its progress.

Writing following the recent death of her friend Ruth Morrissey, whose slides were negligentl­y reported, Ms Phelan called on the Government to take action.

Ms Phelan, who was also given a terminal diagnosis, called for the enactment of legislatio­n to provide for mandatory open disclosure, implementa­tion of all outstandin­g recommenda­tions from the Scally Report, a new Steering Committee to oversee CervicalCh­eck, and a CervicalCh­eck Tribunal that “does not involve confrontat­ion with the laboratori­es”.

The two new judges are Ms Justice Ann Power, who will chair the tribunal, and Mr Justice Tony O’Connor. Mr Justice Brian McGovern is the third member.

The Department said this weekend that a tender process and recruitmen­t have begun for a new National Screening Service. The outsourcin­g of tests for reading was criticised by Dr Scally’s report. It said 137 of the 170 actions identified in the report have been completed.

‘The point is that we can’t turn this into a gladiatori­al contest’

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